Migration and the accentuated ambivalence of motherhood: the role of ICTs in Filipino transnational families

Ambient co-presence: transnational family practices in polymedia environments

“…Ambient co-presence may give transnational families additional ways of 'doing family', but will not solve separation or other relationship problems. Given that all my participants were still in the UK eight years after I first met them, suggests that the experience of ambient co-presence may, to extend an argument developed elsewhere (Madianou 2012), be a contributory factor towards justifying their decisions not to return to the Philippines.…”

“…This has changed recently with what is now a substantial body of work which has analysed communication as integral to transnational family practices (Baldassar 2008;Cabanes and Acedera 2012;King-O'Riain 2014;Madianou 2012;Madianou and Miller 2012;Nedelcu 2012;Parreñas 2005;Peng and Wong 2013;Uy-Tioco 2007;Wilding 2006). Studies have highlighted different aspects of the role of mediated communication -both negative and positive -for transnational relationships such as the way they amplify gender asymmetries (Parreñas 2005), facilitate emotional expression (Baldassar 2008;King-O'Riain 2014) and relate to identity processes (Nedelcu 2012).…”

“…The Philippines exemplifies this phenomenon with over nine million overseas workers and nine million left-behind children (Parreñas 2008: 68). Although elsewhere I have focused on the contours of transnational mothering (Madianou 2012), in this article I explore the wider sets of family and intimate relationships that Filipina migrant women maintain -including those with their left-behind children.…”

“…I have based this article on long-term ethnographic work with Filipino transnational families and on the follow-up fieldwork I undertook to update my earlier research reported elsewhere (Madianou 2012;Madianou and Miller 2012). I here draw primarily on online ethnography and on interviews with 13 UK-based migrants, all of whom were key informants in the previous project .…”

“…Given that some family members may be separated for years (Baldassar et al 2007;Madianou and Miller 2012), mediated communication can be vital for distant caregiving and a potential lifeline for the survival of the relationships. The convergence of transnationalism and communication technologies has enabled sets of practices that support a new type of 'connected family' at a distance, which has wider implications for the phenomenon of migration itself (Madianou 2012). This article offers a detailed account of a new type of mediated co-presence made possible by the emergence of communication environments of polymedia (Madianou and Miller 2013).…”